


Dress Codes

by Corycides



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Blackout Day, F/M, Incest, Orgy Armada
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 06:28:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4818623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Charlie Matheson left home to join the militia, she thought that was the last she would see of her family. Except the Mathesons don't let go that easily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dress Codes

**Author's Note:**

> Doing this on my iPad! If it goes wrong I will fix it tomorrow!

The uniform lies on the bed staring back at you.  
\---------------------

The name on her enlistment slip is Charlotte Mathes, the S sliding off the edge of the paper. It also says she’s 18 and a full and legal citizen of the Monroe Republic. They were lies before they were noted down on paper, now they’re the truth. President Monroe’s word is law, and his branded proxies claim the authority by contagion.

That night her Dad hit her for the first time. She’d been hit harder, but the shock of it left her shaking and staring at the floor.

‘What were you thinking?’ he yelled, shaking her. ‘Are you stupid? You really want to join the militia, parading around like jumped up little Nazis? Jackbooting your way into infamy?’

She wiped the blood off her lip. In the oil light it looked like oil, but it made things easier.

‘As opposed to what?’ she asked. ‘Should I stay here and grow leeks, birth calves, and breed a bunch of kids cos half of them will die? Is that meant to be my life?’

He looked away, rubbing at the hand that hit her like he was punishing it. ‘Is this such a bad life?’ he asked. ‘It’s honest. It’s not hurting anyone.’

‘It’s not doing anything,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s just going from one day to the next. Look around you, Dad. It’s not going to better, things aren’t going to suddenly go back to your normal. This is the world now. And I’m not hiding here anymore.’

He rubbed his hand over his face. ‘You don’t understand.’

‘Then explain,’ she said, stepping forwards. ‘Tell me why mom left. Tell me who those people that come to visit once and never come back are. Just tell me what you want from me.’

He rounded on her, ‘I want you to take care of Danny. I want you to take care of your brother. That’s your job, Charlie, the only thing we ever asked of you.’

Her chest hurt. It was packed so full of guilt and grief and anger that she felt like one of Arden’s ducks, eating stones and gravel until her ribs split.

‘He’s my brother, but he’s your kid,’ she said. ‘Maybe it’s your turn to take care of him. Not like you do anything else but sponge off Maggie.’

If he’d hit her again, she’d have left righteous. Instead he sat down, landing hard like his knees gave up halfway through, and buried his head in his hands. Charlie stood there for a second, trying to breathe while she stared at him slumped shoulders. She wanted to keep yelling, to ask him if he thought she didn’t know about the packets of money that came sneaking in with the traders and how he drank most of it instead of buying food, to ask him how he knew their mom was dead when he’d never looked, to ask...all of it. Except there was no fight left to be had.

Maggie came in, hands raw and cracked with lye from another birthing. She stroked Ben’s head and sent Charlie away with a bag of clothes and a packed lunch.

‘It’s too late to change your mind,’ she said. ‘You have to go. And you have to come back, you hear me, Charlie? Militia or not, this is your home.’

She left, and waited in the playground on the edge of town. Her heels scraped over the cracked concrete as she swung back and forth on the chained tire. After an hour, as the sky was starting to go bruise coloured, Danny came sloping down the road. Her little brother, skinny as a rail and tow-headed as their mom. 

‘You could have waited until I could come too,’ he said, sitting on the swing next to her.

‘You have asthma, Danny,’ Charlie pointed out. ‘A field of wheat can beat you in a fight. You need to stay here, with Dad and Maggie.’

He stared at his boots, scowling at the scars a succession of kids had worn into the toes before they were handed down to him. ‘Did you mean what you said to Dad?’

Charlie rested her head against the chain, the metal cold against her temple. ‘No. Yes. I don’t know. Sometimes? None of it was a lie.’

She didn’t need to explain that to Danny. Ben wasn’t that bad. He could have been worse. Derek Frances beat his wife, leaving bruises that she blamed on their goat. The baker had bought a boy a town over to be his apprentice, but everyone knew behind their hands what else the boy did. Ben never beat them, he worried over them when they were sick, he made sure they got schooling, and told them he loved them. It was just the other times, when he yelled at Charlie for leaving Danny alone for five minutes, when he locked himself away for hours and came out sad and drunk. The winter they’d all nearly starved, and he’d used what trade dollars they’d hoarded to buy Aaron’s debts out from under him.

‘Here,’ she said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a leather pouch. ‘My signing bonus,’ she explained. ‘It’s for you. Hide it away, make sure you have everything you need when it gets cold. OK?’

Danny wrapped his fingers around it. ‘I’d rather you stayed.’

Leaning over, bumping swings, Charlie hugged him. ‘I’ll be back. Whenever I can.’

\--------------------

She didn’t though. At first she’d meant to, but ensigns didn’t get a lot of leave. Any leave. Then she’d just not gone. What leave she got, she traded back to her lieutenant so she could work longer hours and shine up her record. Kid like her, a backwoods signing on the outskirts of the Republic? She was never going to get assigned the capital, but Chicago or New York were in reach. 

Charlie had even put her name down for the Canadian borderlands. She didn’t mind the cold, and she’d always wanted to see a moose. Her record said she was a good killer, but didn’t follow orders well. That made her good fodder for the cold war up there.

After a while, she just gave up ‘meaning to’ as a lie that just made her feel worse.

She sent some of her wage home. For a while it amazed her that she wasn’t the only person who did. Everyone hated the militia so much, it was weird to realise that they were just people with families and wives and widowed ma’s they fretted about. Well, most of them. Not the boat crews. The soldiers that crawled out of those hellholes were crop-headed and dead-eyed, and no one trusted them at their back. 

Sometimes she got letters back. Not often. Not for over a year.

\------------------------

It was a good bar. The beer was rank and the whiskey was only brown because the barkeep dyed it, but the food was good, the prices were reasonable, and there were no problems with the whores rolling drunk johns. Or giving them the clap. The owner didn’t have any problem serving the militia either, which put Charlie at ease. Some of the guys liked putting the fear of the militia in the locals, enjoyed having everyone quaking in their boots. Charlie liked food that hadn’t been spat in.

She’d staked out a table in the back of the bar, back to the wall and empty plates and glasses on the table where her friends had headed off to fuck a whore, go on patrol, or go look moon eyed at the girl who wasn’t going to hook up with a militia cadet if her family had anything to do with it respectively. Charlie was finishing a mug of cider and debating whether head back to barracks or not when the door opened. 

Habit dropped her hand to her sword. Madison was a militia town, but when Charlie had been on circuit she’d run into trouble with a few rebels. The three boys who tumbled in through the door, nudging each other and laughing, still had the metaphorical hayseeds in their hair. They didn’t look like much a threat, probably traders come to sell their sheep at the fair and see the big city. 

Or in this case, the whores.

Without even bothering to order a drink, two of the boys disappeared upstairs. They’d be heading back home with no more cash than they’d left with, and probably get their da’s hand around their ear for their troubles. Something that would probably occur to them somewhere between spunking on some poor girl’s leg and putting their pants back on.

The barkeep carried a mug of cider and a pot of fried veg over to the table. ‘Mind hanging around, Mathes?’ he asked. ‘Keep everyone honest?’

‘I can do that,’ she said agreeably. Picking up a crispy bit of potato skin she popped it into her mouth, then licked the salt of her fingers. ‘Going to be a busy month.’

The barkeep grimaced and dug his fingers into his beard, tugging at it. ‘Always is this time of year. Farmboys always think they’re getting laid for the love of it.’

‘It’s their mom’s fault,’ Charlie said. ‘Always warning them about loose lads and lasses in the big city. Poor sods come here and people want cash to fuck ‘em, feed ‘em, and toss ‘em in a hole after they’ve been finished off.’

Chuckling, the barkeep headed back to mind his bar. 

After a minute, the last farmboy wandered over to her table.

‘Hey,’ he said, voice cracking with awkwardness. ‘I saw you and I -’

Charlie shook her head, wiping her on her hand. ‘Sorry, kid.’ She held up her arm, sleeve shoved back already so there was nothing to hide the brand. ‘I’m not that sort of working woman.’

He looked odd for a second, an awkward expression crossing his face. ‘I didn’t mean to... ‘

She shrugged and kicked a chair out from the table, grinning at him. ‘Don’t worry about it. On a winter circuit, I’ve thought I picked the wrong job a couple of times. Sit down, we’re both waiting for your friends.’

After a second, he turned the chair around and sat down. His folded arms rested over the rickety back, making his shoulder’s look even broader. Charlie gave him an appreciative once over - tall, shaggy blonde hair, and muscles on top of muscles. If the boys in Sylvania had looked more like this she’d probably have been more amenable to Ben’s plans to get her wedded off. At least for a couple of nights.

‘Charlie,’ she said, sticking her hand out.

He wrapped his fingers around it gently. ‘D..arren.'

‘Pleased to meet you, Darren,’ Charlie said. She slouched down in her seat and...why not, if they were both stuck here for a while. ‘How are you finding Madison?’

Privacy didn’t exist in the barracks, and Darren was sharing loft space with fifteen other lads. So Charlie hired a room for the night, laughing as he hurried her up the stairs. He kissed her like she was delicate, hands tentative on her hips and shoulders.  
Charlie laughed and stripped her shirt off, tossing it the end of the bed. ‘I’m not going to break.’

He sucked in a hard, ragged breath, face lost as he stared at her. Charlie hesitated, hand pausing in pulling her bra-strap down. ‘You’re not a virgin are you? I am not mooning over material.’

‘No. I’m not. I… No,’ he stammered. ‘I just, it’s just that you’re beautiful.’

It wasn’t entirely convincing, but Charlie made the choice to believe him. She shed her bra and hooked her hand in the waistband of his trousers, tugging him close. 

‘Then kiss me again,’ she told him.

He buried his hand in her hair and bent down to kiss her. It was sweet at first, then his mouth got hungry. The beach creaked as they both fell down onto it. He cupped her breasts in big, callused hands, and kissed his way down her throat. She tugged at his belt buckle, shoving his trousers down over lean hips. He made a strangled noise as she wrapped her fingers around his cock, jerking forwards helplessly.

Charlie laughed and wriggled her trousers down to her thighs. She guided him inside her, lifting her hips to make it easier. He murmured into her throat, hands sliding down to grip her ass as he moved on top of her. 

Pleasure curled stickily in Charlie’s stomach as she buried her fingers in his hair. He kissed her neck, licked his way down her breast. She whimpered, arching up into his mouth, as he suckled on the tight, pink bud. Her foot braced against the mattress, the long lines of her thigh tightening, as she came in a hot wash of satisfaction. She hooked her arm around his neck, pulling him down so she could muffle the sounds she was making against his shoulder.

And maybe he had been telling the truth about not being a virgin. He pulled out and rolled onto his back, reaching down to grab his cock. Charlie propped herself up on her elbow and watched him finish, fingers pulling roughing at the tender skin of his cock. He groaned, muscles in his thighs clenching, and came with a shudder over his fingers.

She kicked her trousers the rest of the way off, dropping them over the edge of the bed. Sitting up she swung a long leg over him, sitting on his flat stomach.

‘And all for free,’ she teased, sliding her hands under his shirt. ‘Your friends will be jealous.’

‘I don’t care what they are,’ he said. ‘This isn’t about them.’

She grinned and leaned forwards, kissing his mouth. ‘Good. I like focus.’ Her hand drifted down his side, finding the ridges of muscle. An old scar scraped under her thumb, rough and clean and familiar, and she froze.

‘Charlie...’ Big hands caught her wrists and her eyes jerked up to the - now she thought about it - vaguely familiar face. The eyes were the same, and the jaw - the rest of his bones had just settled around them, and moved higher than she was used to.  
‘I was going to tell you.’

Dragging her trousers on, Charlie tried to tune out Danny’s explanations. She couldn’t listen to him until she was dressed. She shoved her arms into her shirt, hard enough to strain the seams, and buttoned it between her breasts.

Decent - to a visual inspection at least - Charlie turned to glare at her...brother.

‘I’m going to fucking kill you,’ she said. ‘What...You’re my brother. And cover yourself!’

He grabbed a handful of old sheet and dragged it over his lap. ‘You going to let me finish talking this time?’

She waved her hands at him in a ‘go on’ gesture. ‘I... You didn’t recognise me, and I thought you wouldn’t? I mean, I’ve not seen you for years.’

Charlie pressed her knuckles to her forehead. ‘That’s not a reason to screw your sister.’

‘I know. I just...don’t care.’ Danny shrugged. ‘Who’s going to care? Who’s going to even know? Come on, Charlie. It’s always been you.’

She raised her eyebrows at him. ‘Yeah, Mr Not a Virgin?’

He shrugged. ‘I thought about you when I screwed her.’

The argument cycled round and round - Charlie yelling, Danny secure in his want - until she was too exhausted for it. She sat down on the edge of the bed and buried her face in her hands.

‘This is so screwed up,’ she said into her palms. ‘When Dad finds out, he’s going to-’

‘What? Kill you?’ Danny asked. ‘You’re a militia officer, he’s a pacifist. Kick you out? Stop talking to you? Charlie, I shouldn’t have done it like this. Honest to God, I didn’t mean to. It’s just, you didn’t know me and I just saw this whole...thing open up. I could be Darren, Darren Whatever, and you’d be you and nobody would ever know that we weren’t just...us.’

‘Darren would have been sent packing in the morning with a slap on the ass and a see you never.’

The thing was - the bad thing was - Charlie didn’t know if she cared either, or if she was angry because she thought she should be. She was angry with him, but it felt more like aggravation than horror or disgust. Something that could be vented and done with. Disgust was an atavistic thing that lived in your gut and waited until you’d almost gotten used to it before crawling into your nightmares. 

She’d seen boat crew militia casually do things that turned her stomach, and two years later still made her cringe. And she’d seen citizens do things that had made a boat crew soldier turn his stomach out onto his boots. Four years in the militia and she’d learned that people - in uniform or not - could be awful if they thought they could get away with it.

They ended up going to sleep, stretched out on the same mattress. Back home, they’d always shared a bed. It seemed stupid to pretend now that they hadn’t. In the morning Danny left. He’d be back in a year, when he was 18 and Dad couldn’t do anything to bring him back.

Charlie was not at all sure how she felt about that. He was brother and she loved him - with this or without it - but she couldn’t see how it would work. 

\------------

In the end, the problem solved itself.

Charlie stood in the barracks, stone cold against her bare feet, and stared at her uniform. It felt like it was staring back at her. Her father was dead. A Lieutenant Neville had sent the message to be passed on the capital. She was meant to be outside in five minutes to take the message to the next checkpoint.

She was a soldier in the militia. She knew her duty.

But even if it said Mathes on her records, she was a Matheson.


End file.
